


Apocalypse Fail

by AnguaLupin



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: Gen, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguaLupin/pseuds/AnguaLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I dreamed (literally, not metaphorically) that the sun was dying, and I was running along the rooftops of London with Hadley Fraser, trying to find a fusion reactor that we could shoot into the sun to restart it. (Look, it was a dream, science doesn't apply.) Only Hadley had just been nominated for an Olivier award, and he Would. Not. Shut. Up. about it.</p>
<p>"<i>Christ</i>, Hadley," I kept saying. "If we don't save the world right now, <i>there are never going to be any Oliviers ever again</i>."</p>
<p>Then I told voksen and she thought it was hilarious and made me write it up, so here it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apocalypse Fail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voksen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/gifts).



The wind whistled shrilly among the jagged rooftops as the dying sun hung sullenly in the sky. Angua shivered and wrapped her jacket closer around her. It was cold. It was cold, and dark, and London echoed emptily below her. The apocalypse was disturbingly quiet.

There was a crash and a clatter and then muffled swearing behind her as Hadley misjudged his footing on the loose slate roof.

Well, maybe not quiet enough.

“You know, I’m nominated for an Olivier,” Hadley muttered, picking his way around the shattered tiles.

“By all the gods, high, low, wandering or incarnate, if you say that one more time I am going to shove you off this roof,” Angua snapped back. “No one is going to give you a damn Olivier until we _save the fucking world_.”

“I’m just saying, I’m a really good actor. I mean, really good. People like me. I get work. I even have obsessed fans, although mostly they’re _Phantom of the Opera_ fans so I try to avoid them. I just don’t see how that qualifies me to save the world.”

“And I’m qualified, then?” Angua said, hauling herself over a small chimney with one of those anti-pigeon guards on it.

“Well, you’re a scientist,” Hadley said, trying to do the same but impaling his hand on the pigeon guard instead. “FUCK."

“I’m an _epidemiologist_ ,” Angua said. “If the apocalypse involved _infectious disease_ , I’d be qualified. Instead the apocalypse involves the sun deciding to take a walkabout and I’m stuck on a bloody rooftop in London with an actor who won’t stop whinging, looking for a fusion reactor that I probably won’t even recognise if I find it.”

“I’m bleeding,” Hadley said. “Can your epidemiology stretch towards preventing me from getting a horrible infection?”

“Put some iodine on it and shut up,” Angua said. “We have a world to save.”

“I’m not going to thank you in my Olivier acceptance speech,” Hadley said, tearing a strip off his shirt to wrap around his hand.

“You always could have gone with Ramin in his search for the rocket we’re supposedly going to use to send this fusion reactor into the sun,” Angua said. She contemplated the space between the building they were on and the next roof. Was it jumpable? She supposed she could always lay Hadley down and use him as a bridge. “He was taking a car.”

“Ramin gets lost on his way to the bathroom,” Hadley said, still looking at his hand. Angua reached out and stopped him just before he walked off the edge of the roof. “You sounded like you knew what you were doing.”

“The world is fucking doomed,” Angua muttered under her breath. There was a fire escape that went down to the alley between the buildings, but she didn’t see an equivalent set of stairs on the opposite building. “Ok, we’re going to have to jump.”

Hadley eyed the gap between the buildings warily. “You know, I don’t normally do my own stunts.”

“You know, I don’t normally contemplate murder,” Angua said. “I try to embrace Hugo’s advocacy of nonviolence in everything I do. But the world is fucking ending and I think even Hugo would be contemplating shoving you off a building right about now.”

“He shoved Javert off a bridge. What if I start channelling Javert half way through the jump? I’ll fall without even getting the fun of derailing first.”

“Right now you’re being as useless as Grantaire, so just stick with that.” Angua backed up as far as she could. Nothing for it but to try. The world wasn’t saving itself. She ran forward and pushed herself off the edge. Her leading foot came down on the edge of the far roof, then slipped so she faceplanted into the concrete. “MotherFUCKER,” she swore.

“Are you alright?” Hadley called from the other building.

“Just get over here,” Angua said, rubbing grit off her palms as she stood up, wincing.

Hadley took a running start and leaped. He cleared the gap with ease and landed considerably better than Angua had. His glasses didn't even fall off. She glared at him. “Right, then,” Hadley said. “What’s next?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Angua said, and turned around and started walking.

“What does a fusion reactor even look like?” Hadley asked as they continued picking their way along the roof.

“I think it looks like a really big Olivier award,” Angua replied.

“Really?” Hadley said, perking up.

“No, but I’ll pretend it does if that will make you actually pay attention.”

“Oh,” Hadley said, slumping again.

They continued walking along the rooftop as the wind moaned a dirge of the dying world around them. It sounded suspiciously like The Sad Oboe Solo for Dead French Boys.

**Author's Note:**

> I should just issue a blanket apology to everyone affected by this.
> 
> I'm sorry Robin McKinley, for stealing "by all the gods, high, low, wandering or incarnate" from your novel _Deerskin_.
> 
> I'm sorry Hadley Fraser, for writing you as utterly incompetent when facing the apocalypse, and also as obsessed with acting awards. I hope if the world ever actually ends you will be less useless.
> 
> I'm sorry Ramin Karimloo, for implying that you can't find your way to the bathroom without a map.
> 
> I'm sorry to everyone who follows me on tumblr, who had to read about my dream, my subsequent conversation with voksen, and then had this cluttering up their dash.
> 
> I'm sorry to everyone who expected scientific rigor in a dream about the sun running out of fusion.
> 
> And I'm really sorry to those who managed to read all the way through this, because I'm sure you're really regretting it now.


End file.
